A Virginia State University professor is being recognized on one of literature’s biggest stages. Dr. Latorial Faison, chair of VSU’s Department of Languages & Literature, has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in Poetry for her new book Nursery Rhymes in Black.
The collection, published in July by the University of Alaska Press, reimagines childhood rhymes through the lens of Black history and lived experience. VSU described it as a “poetic recollection of race, roots, culture, and identity” — a work that blends memory, tradition, and resistance into something at once familiar and entirely new.
Dr. Faison said in a press release from the university, “This collection is tied to the heart and history of who I am as a Black woman in America. I am grateful to trailblazers like Gwendolyn Brooks, Lucille Clifton, and Nikki Giovanni, whose voices carved the path, kept the light on, and made this moment possible.”
The Pulitzer Prizes, among the most prestigious honors in American letters, will be awarded in May 2026. Faison’s nomination came from the University of Alaska Press, which had previously awarded Nursery Rhymes in Black the 2023 Permafrost Poetry Book Prize before publishing it this summer.
This is far from Faison’s first contribution to the literary world. A VSU alumna herself, she has written more than 16 books, including Mother to Son, 28 Days of Poetry Celebrating Black History, and The Missed Education of the Negro, which explored segregated Black education in Virginia’s Southampton County during the mid-20th century.
But Nursery Rhymes in Black has already distinguished itself in the crowded world of poetry. Acclaimed literary figures, including Dr. Joanne Gabbin, founder of the Furious Flower Poetry Center, and writers Judy Juanita, Glenis Redmond, Trudier Harris, and Cedric Tillman, have praised the collection for its powerful and nuanced portrayal of Black family life and resilience.
For VSU, the recognition is about more than one professor’s success. The university said, “Dr. Faison’s Pulitzer Prize nomination highlights the significance of her literary contribution and affirms VSU’s commitment to nurturing voices that illuminate Black life, memory, and resilience.”
Whether or not she takes home the prize next spring, Dr. Faison’s work has already made an impression. By taking rhymes that many Americans grew up reciting and reframing them through centuries of Black struggle and triumph, Nursery Rhymes in Black gives the familiar a sharper edge. It reminds readers that even childhood songs carry history — and that history, when reimagined through art, can speak in new and transformative ways.
